On the Greenheart Games blog, developer Patrick Klug details how he intentionally seeded a "pirated" version of Game Dev Tycoon at the very moment that the title went up on the developer's store yesterday. This illicit version plays exactly like the official paid version for the first few hours, letting players control a miniature game development studio trying to release successful titles in a simulated marketplace.

After a while, though, those playing the pirated version will be confronted with a message that, as Klug puts it, takes "the unique opportunity of holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game developers."

Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally. If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.

That's right: players in the pirated version will inevitably find themselves failing thanks to piracy. Interestingly, this tweak arguably makes the illegal version of Game Dev Tycoon a little more true-to-life than the version that players can actually buy (though in a way that's decidedly not very fun for the player).

Most pirates, on seeing the above message, might take it as a good opportunity to take a good, hard look at themselves and examine the effects their own actions are having on the developers. Some players, though, apparently missed the irony and instead took to message boards to complain about the effect piracy was having on their in-game studio... in a game they themselves pirated.

"Why are there so many people that pirate? It ruins me! ... Not fair" wrote one user while busy being "not fair" to the developers of Game Dev Tycoon. "I can't make any profit... I mean can I research a DRM or something" wrote another user, who would likely have been incensed if Greenheart Games had put DRM on the game he was playing.

While it's easy to laugh at the lack of self-awareness on display, the actual usage statistics for Game Dev Tycoon probably don't seem that funny to Greenheart Games. After a single day on the market, the developer found that the 214 users that bought the game for $7.99 (or 6.49EUR) were dwarfed by at least 3,100 pirates. That's more than 93 percent of players who didn't pay a cent. This might sound high, but it's in line with what otherPC game developershave seen for their titles. Even pay-what-you-want bundles that offer their games for as little as a penny can run into serious problems with pirates.

We can argue all day about just how many of those pirates would have actually plunked down the money for Game Dev Tycoon if piracy wasn't an option, but we can only imagine that it would be more than zero. In any case, hopefully a few of those thousands of pirates will at least come across a bit of additional empathy for the hard-working, piracy-plagued game developers after their experience with the "cracked" version of Game Dev Tycoon.

Actually the funniest antipiracy is still Starflight, where if you failed the codewheel check twice, you would get 'pulled over' by the Interstel Police Patrol ships for violation of the Copyright Act - in the 30th Century evidently a capital crime - <G>.

387 Reader Comments

1) The person downloading the pirated version would have known it was a pirated version. From a moral standpoint, that person is a pirate.

Honestly, how? Because the title? Should we assume that everyone with a copy of "Steal This Book" is a thief? When did file names on bit torrent become an authoritative proof or indicator of anything?

I just don't know. The loudest sound here is that of the authors themselves [b]deliberately seeding, deliberately transmitting[/b that file over and over to some large number of downloaders. If they didn't want it distributed, they should have 1. not begun transmitting it, and 2. stopped their own computer from transmitting it. Intentional is intentional.

Please. Are you really suggesting that the people downloading this somehow knew it was a legitimate upload?

In fact, if the downloaders were charged as violating copyright, it's possible the seeder (in this case, the copyright holder, too) could be charged as well.

This guy is a jackass. He now has no leg to stand on to actually charge the "piraters"; it would never hold up in court.

1) Private parties can't charge others with any crime. The civil system allows for civil suits and the criminal system allows the government to bring criminal charges.

2) There is no statute on the books that would allow a copyright holder to be charged for distributing material that they hold the copyright to. The government would have to claim that the copyright holder was not authorized to distribute the content that they own the copyright to. It's nonsense.

3) The copyright holder in question clearly never had any intention of pursuing either civil or criminal complaints. So what? Are you saying that he should be suing people? What if he doesn't want to?

4) This whole discussion is about the moral/ethical implications of distributing an inferior product to pirates, not going after them legally. Can we stick to that? I think you'll come across more intelligently in that space than in talking about copyright law and the judicial system.

I think this is an example of how people sometimes put blinders on when it benefits them.

We do it in politics, "I'll vote for this guy, he'll be different from the other crooks."

We do it with drugs, "I can take a little more, it won't kill me."

We do it with gambling "I know the odds are astronomical, but I got a feeling I'm gonna win."

People tend to think bad stuff happens to other people, perhaps they also think, "Its other people that do bad things, not me". Maybe fighting illegal downloading is to fight a part of human nature. I suppose its a personal call for the game dev. This example is at least a different approach to the problem of illegal downloading.

Yawn. That comment and the accompanying statistics are highly misleading. There are suites of tools that automatically download 0-day releases for a large number of people. This means that on day 1 a huge influx of people will have pirated copies of the game compared to legal purchases on most titles. This is true for movies and music as well.

95% pirated after day 1? I don't doubt it. 95% pirated after 2 months? 3 months? When the 0-day scripts are no longer in effect? I doubt that very seriously.

Wow. People have tools that automatically download the newest pirated material for them as soon as it becomes available? Not only are they unwilling to pay for stuff, they don't want to wait for it either, much less do any kind or work to find it themselves?

That literally makes my brain hurt.

They also probably don't use most of it either. They are basically just hoarding

Yawn. That comment and the accompanying statistics are highly misleading. There are suites of tools that automatically download 0-day releases for a large number of people. This means that on day 1 a huge influx of people will have pirated copies of the game compared to legal purchases on most titles. This is true for movies and music as well.

95% pirated after day 1? I don't doubt it. 95% pirated after 2 months? 3 months? When the 0-day scripts are no longer in effect? I doubt that very seriously.

Did you read the original article? Their numbers are generated from usage statistics of people playing the game, not the number of people torrenting the file.

Please. Are you really suggesting that the people downloading this somehow knew it was a legitimate upload?

Is it your assertion that the performing of a completely legal act is illegal if the individual performing the act is not aware of the legality of the act? That the default state of all acts is "illegal" unless explicitly allowed by some law somewhere?

(Yes, I'm playing a little fast and loose with the concept of "legal" and how civil matters and criminal matters are totally different just because the terms are convenient)

Wait, I was only one of like 200 people that actually bought it? That's kinda lame.

The game itself is fun, though I'm not sure if I have the patience to play through it again, after my first reasonable success of making just over $200m in my 30 years. I never made a large or AAA title, so I am kinda curious what it would be like on larger games.

What's been incredibly disturbing is the amount of comments I see on this story everywhere trying to self justify piracy and demonizing the developers for even DARING to teach gamers a karmic lesson that they've been trying to hide from. At the end of the day, theft is theft, no matter how many pirates try to weasel around it.

Yes you're correct, theft is theft. Piracy isn't theft, so I am not sure where you're going with this?

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I wonder if anyone would have bothered to pirate this game outside the situation the developer itself created. It's not exactly highprofile.

I haven't pirated a game in two years. I also now pay for all my music via Spotify and movies/TV via iTunes, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Before all that, though, I had a massive library of pirated music and movies and about two dozen pirated games. Why? Well, two years ago, I was 17 and did not have a job, bank account, PayPal, or debit card. If I wanted to purchase something online, I had two options: use my nonexistent income to buy a prepaid debit card, or ask my dad to foot the bill. Even when I had money to pay him back, he was often reluctant to facilitate my "gaming addiction" by using his card to purchase games.

None of this excuses piracy, but I think it's a factor that's often overlooked. Things like this are hard to study and quantify for a number of reasons, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that 90% of pirates are kids under the age of 16 for whom paying any amount of money online, no matter how small, is very difficult or impossible. This would explain why even the "humble bundle"-style, pay-what-you-want titles experience high piracy rates. It's not even a question of somebody being "cheap"- although $60 can be immeasurably more money to a jobless kid than it is to an adult with even a low-paying job. It's more of a problem of access, where kids just don't have have the means to convert whatever cash they may have into electronic currency (except via their reluctant parents, who often don't understand the way kids consume media in the 21st century).

All of that is a completely reasonable explanation.

The thing is, it doesn't really excuse it, it only rationalizes it. It also screams unjustified sense of entitlement.

If you were talking about say, food, or text books, clothes, or some other vitally important good, then yes, you can justify it. But even then stealing is stealing.

But you are talking about entertainment. I know it sucks not having unlimited funds to buy whatever new fun thing there is (I know, I went through the same thing as a kid), but that is called life. It really doesn't change as an adult, it just gets modified. The toys just change and become more expensive. Everyone wants a private jet, yacht, and mansion. Doesn't mean everyone gets one. And just because you really want one but don't have the money for a Porsche doesn't justify stealing one.

What's been incredibly disturbing is the amount of comments I see on this story everywhere trying to self justify piracy and demonizing the developers for even DARING to teach gamers a karmic lesson that they've been trying to hide from. At the end of the day, theft is theft, no matter how many pirates try to weasel around it.

Yes you're correct, theft is theft. Piracy isn't theft, so I am not sure where you're going with this?

Is it your assertion that the performing of a completely legal act is illegal if the individual performing the act is not aware of the legality of the act? That the default state of all acts is "illegal" unless explicitly allowed by some law somewhere?

In fact, yes. It is a concept called "criminal intent". If you buy baking soda from an undercover officer and you believe it is cocaine, you are going to jail. If you buy what you believe to be plastic explosives but which are in fact modeling clay, it is a crime.

On the flip side, if you buy baking soda at the supermarket and it turns out it is actually smuggled cocaine that somehow ended up on the shelf, you have not committed a crime (now, once you become aware of the mixup, you get to the intent around possession and obligation to report).

Intent is central to every criminal prosecution. That is because it is central to our concept of ethics -- someone who accidentally does harm is not as culpable as someone who intentionally does harm. And someone who tries but fails to do harm is still doing wrong.

It also would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the people playing the pirated version would have been given the option to go ahead and pay for a license and "unlock" the game to be able to continue. If a high percentage of them did that, then you actually have a good argument for allowing people to play for free to test/demo a game before paying for it. If the percentage is low, well then you made a crappy game that people were only playing in the first place because they didn't have anything better to do apparently.

OMG, that's brilliant. Why has not one in software development ever tried making a crippled version and then asking for money to unlock the rest of the game? I'll bet you could make a fortune that way.

Reminds me of the commentary on the Intel chip story were all the features were on the chip, but you paid money to "unlock" some of them.

The similarity between the two games should have been discussed in the article, it is a relevant and interesting piece of additional context.

I haven't played either, so admittedly I don't know how similar the two games are, but if one studio plagiarized borrowed, and then gets upset about people pirating the game.....well, it doesn't excuse the piracy, but it certainly makes him seem like less of a victim.

While I think this is a very clever idea, it's also somewhat dishonest. In the game world, pirates cause studios to go bankrupt. In the real world, the causal link is not as clear.

People arguing that piracy is ruining gamedev routinely ignore the fact that those who pirate don't necessarily have the means to buy many games; their choice is purely between pirating and not playing. Of those 90% or more who pirate the game, it's probably less than 10% who can be persuaded to actually buy it.

I loved Game Dev Story so this game is great to have on the PC where GDS doesn't exist. It really is sad that only a bit over 200 people bought it while 3100 pirated it. Still as for me I didn't even know this game existed till stories like this one on Ars mentioned it so I wouldn't have ever bought it unless I stumbled upon it at some point.

What's been incredibly disturbing is the amount of comments I see on this story everywhere trying to self justify piracy and demonizing the developers for even DARING to teach gamers a karmic lesson that they've been trying to hide from. At the end of the day, theft is theft, no matter how many pirates try to weasel around it.

Yes you're correct, theft is theft. Piracy isn't theft, so I am not sure where you're going with this?

I won Far Cry 3 from an online event and was quite happy. I proceeded to go to Ubisoft's annoying shopping website. Eventually, after the site not quite working properly (kept adding the wrong version to cart), I managed to get the download link. I was overjoyed that I could finally begin downloading the installer. So, it began downloading and after a few hours, it decided to give me an error saying it needed part 1. Well, I did not have part 1 since its suppose to be downloading it. So I refreshed the download and still broken (stuck at 96%), I removed the in progressed part 1 to see if that would force it to be downloaded again and still broken. Joy... so I restarted the downloaded and... it got stuck at 92%. This is after several hours of downloading just the installer from ubisoft.

Well, at this point I was very frustrated. So I came up with a brilliant idea. Why not "obtain" the installer through an 'alternative' means. Well, it took less then an hour to download and it installed perfectly. It prompted me for the activation key and it works just fine. You see, the 'proper' channels to download the game had failed me so I had to go through less then proper channels to download the game I won.

This story also reminds me of the alleged anti-piracy message from the pokemon game. In the coding of one of the pokemon games (perhaps more), it allegedly stays, "By the way: if you like this game, buy it or die."

Did you read the original article? Their numbers are generated from usage statistics of people playing the game, not the number of people torrenting the file.

I read the story. Did you read my post? Obviously not.

The point is that the number of people playing the game in the first day will *always* be skewed toward pirated copies. Why? Because people come home and see that their utilities have *AUTOMATICALLY* downloaded a new game for them.

The story makes it sound like 95% of the public was out there waiting with BAITED BREATH to download and rip off this new game. Not so. They came home from work (or the chuckycheese) and saw that there was a new 0-day game downloaded for them.

The statistics will NOT look this way 2 weeks from now or 2 months - or really at ANY point *after* the first day is what I'm saying.

I doubt very seriously if Kyle or the game developer believe that people were sitting there just itching to get this new unknown game in their hands and just couldn't wait for it to be cracked so they could give it a try. It was automated utilities that spiked the number that high.

Similar utilities spike the download rates of TV episodes, movies, music, etc. If you think this isn't so then you haven't been paying attention to the pirating trends.

My point is that the cited statistics are highly misleading as a result of this phenomenon.

It is *also* true that a huge number of people have downloaded the game and are *not* playing it (far, far more than 3,000) - as the person above suggested - lots of people also horde. This ALSO goes for music, movies, etc. But the hoarding wasn't my point.

My point is that the sales figures will continue to rise - but the spike in illegal downloads is a phenomenon that happens exactly once (0-day release).

I loved Game Dev Story so this game is great to have on the PC where GDS doesn't exist. It really is sad that only a bit over 200 people bought it while 3100 pirated it. Still as for me I didn't even know this game existed till stories like this one on Ars mentioned it so I wouldn't have ever bought it unless I stumbled upon it at some point.

Since you now own both, can you comment on how original Game Dev Tycoon is?

This is cute and fun story, but I do have to wonder what effect this may have had on any potential legitimate purchases.

If I were about to buy a game, even if it is only $8, I would google around and see what the general consensus is before plonking down my money. According to the stats, 90%+ of the internet is complying about some progress-limiting glitch with no known workaround (at least until this story about the honeypot comes to light).How could I have known that if I bought the game I would be immune to this? Even if I were in the market, I wouldn't have bought anything with such overwhelming negativity.

So in holding up a mirror to the pirates, did they also artificially depress the pool of would-be legitimate buyers?

I further note that one of the examples linked claiming that this 93% piracy rate is par for the course - ALSO refers to 0-day. In this case even getting closer to the terminology "Day 0" and etc.

Again - not surprised by the 0-day numbers. Again - highly misleading.

What a yawnfest.

Also for the record: I don't pirate games - and lol @ anyone running unknown executable that they download from the internet. You want a good 95% number? 95% of cracks and cracked games contain backdoors and viruses. Probably close to 100% of keygens do as well. I don't pirate games and think anyone who does is messing with their privacy.

That said - misleading and sensational numbers are still misleading and sensational.

Please. Are you really suggesting that the people downloading this somehow knew it was a legitimate upload?

Is it your assertion that the performing of a completely legal act is illegal if the individual performing the act is not aware of the legality of the act? That the default state of all acts is "illegal" unless explicitly allowed by some law somewhere?

(Yes, I'm playing a little fast and loose with the concept of "legal" and how civil matters and criminal matters are totally different just because the terms are convenient)

If you read my post original, you would see I'm not saying that AT ALL.

What I am saying is that the download was legal in spite of pirates having no way to know it was legal. From a moral perspective, that's the same as pirating. From a legal perspective, totally legit.

Is it your assertion that the performing of a completely legal act is illegal if the individual performing the act is not aware of the legality of the act? That the default state of all acts is "illegal" unless explicitly allowed by some law somewhere?

In fact, yes. It is a concept called "criminal intent". If you buy baking soda from an undercover officer and you believe it is cocaine, you are going to jail. If you buy what you believe to be plastic explosives but which are in fact modeling clay, it is a crime.

On the flip side, if you buy baking soda at the supermarket and it turns out it is actually smuggled cocaine that somehow ended up on the shelf, you have not committed a crime (now, once you become aware of the mixup, you get to the intent around possession and obligation to report).

Intent is central to every criminal prosecution. That is because it is central to our concept of ethics -- someone who accidentally does harm is not as culpable as someone who intentionally does harm. And someone who tries but fails to do harm is still doing wrong.

OMG, that's brilliant. Why has not one in software development ever tried making a crippled version and then asking for money to unlock the rest of the game? I'll bet you could make a fortune that way.

You probably need some sort of sarcasm tag, because someone is going to miss it, I guarantee it.

I've been working on a title on my free time... and stories like this scare the crap out of me. For as many successful indie titles there are out there, there's tons of 90+% piracy rate ones that only sell a few...

I'm generally against DRM, I realize it tends to hurt more than not, and I also realize its almost always crackable within a day of coming out....

If you offer an online service, its a bit easier to handle, illegal accounts you can block/try to prevent from being made or logging in... but if you want to offer a single player experience... what can you offer or do to protect yourself in any way against this?

Stop worrying. The reason why people pirate games is because games exist. When I was a dumb young punk, I pirated. You could slather all the DRM you wanted onto it, and I would still pirate it. If I couldn't pirate for some reason, I wouldn't buy it. You could get zero sales from me or zero sales from me.

Now I am an adult. I have a job and disposable income. I am a lazy son-of-a-bitch. I don't pirate anything ever. I throw money at any game that tickles my fancy. Do you know one really good way to not tickle my fancy? Slather your game with DRM or make it always online. I didn't buy Sim City for a reason.

The number of people who pirate a game means literally nothing. The only number you care about is the number of people that buy the game. Only if DRM magically converts someone who was going to pirate into someone who was going to pay does DRM win you anything. You also need to look at the flip side which is when DRM converts someone who would have been happy to pay into a pissed person who hopes you die and won't pay, like myself.

This game developer sim didn't lose any sales. The people that pirated it were never going to pay. They might have even gained sales. If the game builds a little buzz, people like me will guy buy it.

Developers need to get it out of their head that DRM converts a pirate into someone willing to shell out cash. It doesn't. DRM (occasionally) prevents someone who was never going to pay from playing, and it sure as shit converts people that were happily going to pay into people who won't.

Is it your assertion that the performing of a completely legal act is illegal if the individual performing the act is not aware of the legality of the act? That the default state of all acts is "illegal" unless explicitly allowed by some law somewhere?

In fact, yes. It is a concept called "criminal intent". If you buy baking soda from an undercover officer and you believe it is cocaine, you are going to jail. If you buy what you believe to be plastic explosives but which are in fact modeling clay, it is a crime.

On the flip side, if you buy baking soda at the supermarket and it turns out it is actually smuggled cocaine that somehow ended up on the shelf, you have not committed a crime (now, once you become aware of the mixup, you get to the intent around possession and obligation to report).

Intent is central to every criminal prosecution. That is because it is central to our concept of ethics -- someone who accidentally does harm is not as culpable as someone who intentionally does harm. And someone who tries but fails to do harm is still doing wrong.

Do you seriously not know this, or are you just trolling?

It is amusing the stretches people will go to in their analogies to present one view.

A proper analogy would be if a shady, private individual gifted you an item (that he was the owner of) with no claim one way or another and you were free, based on the circumstances, to judge the situation.

However, that would be an accurate analogy and not allow for the hamfisted "PEOPLE BAD URGH" and "YOU SO STUPID" arguments that you're trying to make.

When a rights owner freely gives away his product, asking others to judge those he gave the product to is, in my view, morally reprehensible and a PR stunt. The ends do not justify the means.

Come on now, nobody here said that. It's just disingenuous for them to get all riled up about piracy when their entire game seems to be based on copying from others in the first place.

The clear implication is that he isn't sympathetic to piracy concerns because the game is a "knock off." If there's another way to read that post, I'd love to hear it

It's a huge stretch to say that just because you're not sympathetic to something you are claiming it's OK, which is exactly what you are continuing to claim. I don't support the death penalty, that doesn't mean I'd be particularly sympathetic if the Boston marathon bomber was sentenced to a lethal injection.

I will edit my original statement:

Just because a game isn't 100% original, you're not sympathetic to people stealing from him?

I've been working on a title on my free time... and stories like this scare the crap out of me. For as many successful indie titles there are out there, there's tons of 90+% piracy rate ones that only sell a few...

I'm generally against DRM, I realize it tends to hurt more than not, and I also realize its almost always crackable within a day of coming out....

If you offer an online service, its a bit easier to handle, illegal accounts you can block/try to prevent from being made or logging in... but if you want to offer a single player experience... what can you offer or do to protect yourself in any way against this?

Things he does have control over: The appeal of his game to customers.

Even if this is totally unfair and whatever, there is more he could have done to make the game appealing at that price point. Indie devs looking to earn a living making games should make what's going to sell, not what they want to make and then complain that it doesn't.

So basically, you want the entire indie game scene to crank out Call of Duty clones.

Yawn. That comment and the accompanying statistics are highly misleading. There are suites of tools that automatically download 0-day releases for a large number of people. This means that on day 1 a huge influx of people will have pirated copies of the game compared to legal purchases on most titles. This is true for movies and music as well.

95% pirated after day 1? I don't doubt it. 95% pirated after 2 months? 3 months? When the 0-day scripts are no longer in effect? I doubt that very seriously.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.